“Best of” Denver Screening/Awards Ceremony
Friday, September 9th
7:30pm, $10 per ticket
Natisha Walton, Vice President and Executive Producer at RunawayTrain Productions co-produced the winter season of network IDs for PBS Kids Sprout.
PBS KIDS SproutSM is the first 24-hour preschool destination available on TV, for kids ages 2-5. It was created as a partnership among Comcast Corporation, HIT Entertainment, Public Broadcasting Service, and Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street®.
Shot on location in picturesque Breckinridge, Colorado, the heart of Colorado’s ski country, the pre production required weeks of location scouting, wardrobe, and casting.Says Walton: “Casting children can be a lot of fun, but it can also be challenging. You really never know how child actors will react the day of the shoot. You use your best judgment, but in the back of your mind you know they could be in a great mood during casting and not want to perform once they are on set. In our case we were very fortunate.”
Sprout is the #1 Kids On Demand service for young children, generating over half a billion orders to date. Sprout provides 60 hours of VOD programming each month, including 10-15 hours of Spanish-language programming (Plaza Sésamo®, Angelina Ballerina™, Barney & Friends™, Bob the Builder™, Olly El Submarino™).
The IDs are live action and involved nearly 40 crew and talent for 2 days, and were directed by Marianne Fernsler of Sprout.
The finished products are currently running on PBS Kids Sprout. Look for it on your local cable listings.
For the 2nd time in three years, RunawayTrain Productions boasts another win in the New York Festival® television and film competition. The AIDS Awareness video, entitled, Have You Been Tested? was a co-production with Colorado based Takeda Entertainment, Inc.
Brock Sherman, President of RunawayTrain Productions and the Co-Director/Art Director for the award winning piece says, “The video had a strong message and in working with our client, the Colorado AIDS Foundation, we were able to put some ‘on the street’ realism into it that I think made it stand out in the Society and Social Issues category.”
Have You Been Tested was shot on the Canon 5D with the talent credits of:
Executive Producer: Dawn Martin
Co-Executive Producer: Cynthia Aadal
Director: Scott Takeda
Co-Director/Art Director: Brock Sherman
Cinematographer: Ben McCoy
Field Audio: Steve Roseboom
Production Manager: Yvette Manculich
Creative Director: BT McNicholl
Audio Post Production: Frank Durrett
The New York Festivals® is in its 54th year and recognizes the World’s Best Work™ in advertising and TV, Film & Radio programs.
Location: Amsterdam
Feature: One of the world’s biggest providers of electronic consumer lifestyle products finds new competitive success.
When BMGI, an international business problem-solving firm, helped global giant, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, target over 120 million euro in potential cost savings, they turned to RunawayTrain Productions to spotlight the details. Sample: “Not only was this project our first International location shoot, but this project was exciting because it involved multiple trips to Amsterdam and hiring a local crew,” says RunawayTrain’s Vice President and Executive Producer of the project, Natisha Walton.
The HD video news feature is a case study highlighting the partnership between BMGI and Philips, the leading consumer product supplier to major retailers across 150 countries. Along with the Lean Six Sigma training, the two companies actually collaborated and created an intense new business methodology called ‘Smartistics’ for its sales and marketing employees worldwide.
“It’s aimed at improving the decision making process in marketing. So we think of marketing as the classical four Ps; product, pricing, placement and promotion, and trying to understand what are the best combinations of all those various variables that are going to drive your market share and drive your profitability,” explained Greg Kinsey European Managing Director at BMGI.
RunawayTrain’s HD Production that highlights ‘Smartistics’ will help BMGI garner more business. They already have 40 active clients in over 20 countries.
Airing on Public Television in 2012, the feature length, HD documentary film Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time explores the life of conservation legend Aldo Leopold in the early part of the twentieth century and the many ways his land ethic idea continues to be applied all over the world today. Emmy-Award winning narrator, Peter Coyote, is the voice of Aldo Leopold and Runaway Train Productions created the film’s graphic package.
“When we got the call from the U.S. Forest Service, who produced the documentary, we were thrilled to be a part of this project. What we ended up designing was a classic nature feel for the graphics, but we also wanted rich colors and modern aspects to them as well,” said Runaway Train Productions President, Brock Sherman.
“What is exciting about Green Fire is that it is more than just a documentary about Aldo Leopold,” said Leopold’s Foundation Executive Director Buddy Huffaker, “it also explores the influence his ideas have had in shaping the conservation movement as we know it today by highlighting some really inspiring people and organizations doing great work to connect people and the natural world in ways that even Leopold might not have imagined.”
Before airing nationally on PBS, premieres of Green Fire will take place in major markets around the country this year along with community screenings held by local organizers.
Still frame taken from GreenFire Open.
The annual Mark Awards competition is a member service of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, and recognizes outstanding achievement and excellence in marketing from networks, cable companies, and their agencies. Award recipients are known throughout the cable and entertainment world as “best in class.”
Nearly 700 entries are judged annually. Roughly 200 Gold, Silver and Bronze winners are selected by more than 100 elite marketers during a rigorous judging process.
The awards were announced October 18, 2010 at the Summit in New Orleans by CTAM President and CEO Char Beales “The Mark Awards isn’t just about winning entries and outstanding creative. It’s about the people who work diligently in our industry and crank out the best work year after year”.
RunawayTrain Productions snagged a silver award for its work for International Media Distribution’s NCTA Sizzle Reel: 2009 Rebrand Video, and was in good company with other heavy hitters HBO, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Networks and Cox Communications.
Beales continues; “New in 2010, we asked the finalists to send in their photos, and we whipped up a couple of photo montages to honor the winners”. See RunawayTrain Productions photos along with all the winners at:
http://www.ctam.com/html/markawards/pastwinners/2010/winners-2010.htm
As reported by The Brian Allmer Media Network:
http://brianallmerradionetwork.wordpress.com/
Western Dairy Association’s (WDA) board of directors, dairy farm families and staff members met with Smart Slice Pizza partners on July 19 to celebrate a five-year, farm-to-fork partnership that resulted in the creation of a “smart”, fresh, healthy, low-fat pizza offering that can be delivered hot to schools.
Celebrating Smart Slice Pizza Partnership
The collaboration began with St. Vrain Valley School District’s request for a healthier pizza made with low-fat commodity cheese meeting USDA’s strict standards. Dairy farm families through WDA and Dairy Management Inc. teamed up with Domino’s Pizza and Leprino Foods to formulate, pilot test and roll out a new pizza that is delivered fresh and hot to schools; uses low-fat commodity cheese; is cost, labor and energy efficient; supports local business; AND would be eaten by pizza’s toughest critics – school kids.
“The partnership’s project not only won the approval of USDA and St. Vrain School District’s food service team, it won the taste buds of students. The program is now rolling out via Domino’s new national program,” says Cindy Haren, WDA’s chief executive officer.
To make the project even more successful, WDA’s film and educational materials which were developed to educate food service, school and community leaders, and parents won the region’s top news broadcast award, a Heartland Emmy Award.
The specifics of the award:
Informational/Instructional Feature/Segment
“Pizza Day – A Win-Win For Everybody”
Takeda Entertainment, Inc., Denver
Scott Takeda, Director/Writer
Daniel Dvorak, Director of Photography
Brock Sherman, Art Director
Tami Anderson, Senior Producer
Erin Johnson, Creative Director
Visit Western Dairy Association and see the video:
Due to the increased demand for 3-D content, RunawayTrain Productions in Denver, Colorado has set up a dedicated a 3-D post production environment, enabling real time convergence adjustment with active monitoring.
Fresh off a Regional Emmy Award for Art Direction and a special effects Best of Show in the 48 Hour Film Project, Creative Director Brock Sherman sees 3-D as RunawayTrain’s next big growth area. “We’ve had some early success and it seems to be gaining momentum” says Sherman.
RunawayTrain Productions’ first foray into 3-D post production began by crudely converging stereo video streams using common DVE positioning. Sherman recalls: “We understood the basic techniques needed to create stereomedia but the tools were pretty primitive back then, and a lot of it was trial and error, so honestly, we guessed a lot. The biggest drawback was not being able to see the adjustments in a real time environment.”
After contracting to produce 3-D content for AJA Video Systems and several other clients, RunawayTrain decided a commitment to better hardware and software was necessary. Sherman continues: “Today’s software tools make the process so much more precise and the availability and reduction in price of 3-D monitoring really allows us to fine tune the convergence point for the best effects.”
RunawayTrain purchased Cineform Neo 3D, Dashwood 3d Toolbox, and a Panasonic VIERA® monitor with active glasses allowing the designer, producer, and clients to participate in the process. “We’ve found 3-D is very subjective based on content, proximity to the screen, and individual tolerance, so we see more eyes in the post production process as a good thing”.
48 Hour Film Festival
“Game Over” the sci-fi entry by Brock Sherman, creative director at RunawayTrain Productions, in Denver, Colorado and Scott Takeda of Takeda Entertainment, Inc. has made the finals for the 2010 48 hour Film Project in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Here are the Best Films of Albuquerque 2010
“Game Over” by: Game One Productions:
genre: Sci Fi
“The Adventures of Roscoe and Buster” by: Walkie Talkies
genre: Adventure Serial
“Chamber No. 6” by: LindeleMedia
genre: Film Noir
“Drop Dead Gorgeous” by: No Strings
genre: Silent Film
“Engaged” by: 48 High Offical Unit Raptors
genre: Sci Fi
“The Farm” by: HeatStroke Productions
genre: Thriller/Suspense
“Jane Backer” by Bogwood Films
genre: Film de Femme
“L’americano” by: Ultimatum Pictures
genre: Foreign
“The Marvelous Misadventures of Maximillian Gunn and Jewel Cassidey” by: Fire Born Films
genre: Adventure Serial
“MonoType” by: Pancho Segway
genre: Time Travel/Doppelganger
“Pool Shark” by: The In-Famous El Guapos
genre: Thriller
“The Space Adventures of Little Hispanic Boy and Ginger” by: L.A.M.E. Productions
genre: Adventure Serial
Check back to see the results or check
Vidbuzz Colorado 